Night Prowler
by Fluffy Darkness
Summary: Marie is too trusting of a roommate. Stein takes advantage of this during his madness. Rated M for possibly disturbing images, but nothing sexual.


Of course, my first soul eater fic _would_ be about Stein. This is based on the anime because, unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to read the manga yet.

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.

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Scalpel in hand, Stein stands in her doorway, watching her as she sleeps. How he came to stand there, he isn't entirely sure. The urge to dissect washed over him with such a shrieking insistence that he can't remember even trying to resist it, nor can he remember walking to her bedroom and opening the door. He watches the slow rise and fall of her chest, where just beneath her silky flesh beats her pulse, her heart. He grips the scalpel more tightly, anticipation building within him. An itch works its way through his fingers, a desire to carve out that heart and hold it in his hands, inspect its valves, ventricles, and atria. He knows her heart must be be beautiful, in both its exterior and interior.

He doesn't want to dissect just anyone. He wants to dissect Marie.

He watches her expression change, her facial muscles shifting as her lips curve, a lazy smile enveloping her features. That itch writhes up his arm and slithers across his shoulders in a sudden shiver. He could slash a crimson grin into her face, past the corners of her mouth, saw through her jawbone and come full circle. Somewhere amongst his captivation with her smile, there lies the urge to bite her lips. Lip biting, when done to oneself, usually indicates anxiety, even fear. When done to another, is it…a show of dominance?

He isn't sure.

"Rape is often completed as an act of dominance, rather than one of passion," he murmurs as he steps into the room. Whether the statement is directed at himself or Marie, he doesn't know. He trembles in an effort to hold back a sudden bout of laughter that bubbles viciously in his throat, one hand clutching a bedpost. He is surprised that the wood doesn't splinter beneath the pressure.

The opportunity is present. He could do it now, take her bottom lip between his teeth and bite down hard until he broke the tender skin and made her bleed, lap at the budding crimson to soothe the wound. In one swift slice, he could remove her lips from her face. Maybe he would even kiss them.

She would never need to know the sharp steel he wields, the pain of his blades digging into her flesh and uprooting her organs one by one. Anesthesia could numb her senses and mind, and he could cut open her skull and caress her brain, the structure responsible for creating that wonderful mind, feel the winding ridges that make up the consciousness of Marie Mjolnir. He could piece her back together once he finished, and all that would remain as evidence of his work would be the stitches. They would decorate the canvas of her flesh like a map, every line or curve of sutures leading to some treasure hiding within her, each one found, unearthed, and reburied by his hands. And every time Marie would glance at her body, every time she would catch her reflection in the tiniest sliver of glass, those stitches would scream his treachery. She would know that his hands had delved inside of her, that he had been inside of her, invaded her like a villain of the most depraved caliber .

Stein knows that he is depraved. At the moment, he doesn't care.

What physical pain he might save her – the event itself would be an anomaly, for although he excels at causing pain, rarely has he sought to prevent it – would swell within her as psychological torment. She would certainly cry. He could include a lobotomy in her procedure, so that she might not notice, or at least understanding the meaning of, the stitches. Though, why hide the meaning? He would want her to see his mark left upon her body, run her fingertips across the sutures, feel the proof of his surgical mastery, and comprehend that he knows her more intimately than she knows herself.

Perhaps he could switch her right lung with the left, facing them backwards. They would still function properly —

No! Everything must go back as it was!

Desperation rings the thought, as though he knows deep in his core that there is no longer the uncertainty of will or will not dissect, and now he can only hope to grasp the victory of choosing observation over experimentation.

There is still a piece of sanity trying to reign in the madness.

Nothing out of place, nothing missing, nothing swapped, nothing stolen. But something _is_ missing…something has been stolen. Or, was it given away?

"Stein…" she sighs, and his breath catches in his throat like a hook intent on ripping his esophagus in twain. Archaic language, heh. She dreams of him. She dreams of monsters. No, she smiles. She smiles. No monsters. Lovely Marie never smiles at monsters. She destroys them. And yet, she dreams of him and smiles. Why?

The question pulls him to Marie's side, his steps unsteady, where he towers over her slumbering form, hands outstretched and intent on delving inside of her to hunt for the answer. It must live in her blood, flowing through her veins. He needs to know. He needs to know. He will find the answer and retrieve it, even if he needs to bleed her dry to do so, and he will hold it close to him and meld it with his soul.

A mirthless chuckle nearly slips past his lips, but he presses them together and bites down hard to keep the sound at bay. Fear, the action is done out of fear. Fear that he will wake Marie. Fear that he will lose himself entirely, because he cannot lose himself when he is here, not with Marie so near and so vulnerable and at the mercy of his madness just as he is. If only he could, he would lean over her, gently press his palm to her stomach, and let his soul thread sutures anchor her body to the bed. With her restrained, he would take the time to plan his incisions, explore her body with an ease and gentleness he doesn't extend toward his other experiments, anesthesia optional. Weaponless as he is though, the easiest course of action would be simply to drive his scalpel into her jugular repeatedly until she stilled.

In the back of his mind, where a low voice he faintly recognizes as his own amidst the static – so much noise, there's too much noise – is shouting at him, nearly pleading that he leave Marie alone, he does want to wake her with his laughter, to warn her that a creature is lurking above, inches and mere spiraling thoughts away from splattering her blood on the sheets.

He needs to focus.

Why does Marie smile?

Answer the question, Stein.

Why does Marie smile?

There is no need to search for the answer, for already knows it. It is why she dares to sleep in the laboratory, in the lair of the mad scientist, save her obligation to follow Death's orders. Though, he thinks that she would do so even if Death advised her not to. It is why she left her door unlocked, as she does every night, allowing herself to lie vulnerable and unaware. Stein knows she is mistaken, her judgment poor, her trust misplaced. She is naïve, her optimism blinding her to the true reality that stares at her with eyes mere inches away from her own.

Oh. Her eye patch. That's the missing thing.

Stein spots it on the bedside table. Her left eye fascinates him, the way that she conceals it just as consistently as she conceals her womanly assets. All that separates him from it is her eyelid, which is thin and easily removed. He could grasp her eyelashes, gently, between thumb and forefinger, and lift the eyelid away, so that he might observe her wavelength peeking out around the edges of the eye. Marie showed him, once, when they were young, when they were still students. Why she did, he hasn't the faintest idea, but right now, he wishes that she would again.

He drops the scalpel into his coat pocket, and he clenches his hands to stop them from shaking, his nails digging into his palms with a sting that nudges him closer to lucidity. Perhaps he has been lucid this entire time. He hopes that he hasn't, because he needs to believe that there is a difference between him in his moments of clarity and madness. If he allows himself to think that the monster within him has leaked into his sanity, that thought will consume him and become his reality.

Stein knows, of course, that reality is subjective. His own reality is constantly shifting like sand, slipping through his hands, at the mercy of his ever-increasing madness. But, he vows, as long as he can grasp some semblance of control, as long as he can stop himself from irrevocably damaging her, he will not shatter her reality. Hers may be flawed, but it is stable, and it gives her comfort in some manner. That's certainly more than he can say for his own.

The feeling of blood resting in the creases of his palms and crescent welts rising in his skin makes him flex his hand. Marie will surely question him about the marks in the morning. She tends to be annoyingly perceptive when her senses are rejuvenated by a hot cup of tea. He will tell her it happened during a nightmare, an involuntary physical reaction to psychological distress. Although she might look at him dubiously, she will believe him because it won't be a lie. His nightmares aren't kind enough to wait until he sleeps to take hold of him in their clutches.

His fingers latch onto Marie's eye patch, almost of their own accord, and slide it off the bedside table. He holds it to his cheek. Somehow, it's still warm. For a brief moment, he wonders if there might be some trace of her wavelength left on the piece of fabric, what with how often it so intimately presses up against her eye. He knows that the notion is perfectly stupid, and he doesn't entertain it for more than that brief moment. Even so, it finds its way into his coat pocket as he wearily staggers from the room. She owns extras. It wasn't given, but he tells himself that it would have been if he requested it. Stolen without malice, without consequence, without carnage.

He's fallen so far that it sounds like an achievement rather than a crime.

Still, he thinks that Marie would rather he pilfer an eye patch than her organs.


End file.
